TR Forums

Bathroom remodel is a pain in a one bathroom house. Still in the hotel.

When they removed the toilet and the sink, the plumbing actually fell down--the pipes just went. They were getting replaced anyway but DAMN.

Captain Ned wrote:

...stupid idiot dog...

These three words are redundant.

paulWTAMU wrote:

Bathroom remodel is a pain in a one bathroom house. Still in the hotel.

When they removed the toilet and the sink, the plumbing actually fell down--the pipes just went. They were getting replaced anyway but DAMN.

I've seen some standpipe collars that were too rusted to take the new latrine screws, but that's downright impressive.

Upshot is that you found out about this before it started flushing into the crawlspace.

Yep. It was good timing if nothing else The bathroom will be usable by the end of the day but the cabinet and crown molding won't be done till Friday. I'm so looking forward to doing the three S's at home! New floor, new walls, new pipes, new sink, new shower, new tile, etc.

next decade maybe we'll do the kitchen Windows are the next one though, and that'll be 4 grand or so.

Hah, the walls will probably fall down when you go to remove the old windows. I'd hire someone and be in the next county, just to be safe.

actually, the frame seems to be very sound. It's the ONLY thing that's sound maybe, but the frames and exterior walls are in good shape. It's just the guts of the kitchen and bathroom that are really bad. The main reason I want the (original!) windows replaced is energy efficiency. These are old windows and not at all energy efficient4, and there's 14 of them in the house (most of them like 30x45").

Well, this sucks:

http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/ ... _169/10097

Philips was going to produce a 21:9 aspect ratio television set. That would have provided a 2:33 to 1 ratio, which is just perfect for the vast majority of films out there from like 1970 to today. I would have loved to have one of these in my theater room, alas.

16:9 is a good compromise, I guess. My 4:3 content like my classic movies and TV shows would look really odd on a 21:9 screen, after all.

Eh, HDTV is 16:9 and you would have had to put up with the black bands anyways. If you wanted a dedicated movie screen, you could build a 21:9 'frame' for the 80" Sony or LG and make believe you have a 2:33 screen.

I thought you had a badass setup with a screen and projector?

I got rid of the projector sometime ago. I've been on a 55" LED OVER TV for a couple of years now. It allowed me to better utilize the space in my mancave for other man cavish things.

...like a dance pole?

ah, that's a combination of awesome and sad. How's OLED treating you as far as quality? And heat? Our plasma gets hotter than hell.

I passed my PhD candidacy exam, so now I am a "PhD candidate"

Congrats! So now you can tell people you're ABD?

paulWTAMU wrote:

How's OLED treating you as far as quality? And heat? Our plasma gets hotter than hell.

55" OLED will soon be available from LG and Samsung for around $10K.

As for heat I've been pleasantly surprised by the lack of heat waves coming from my 55" Panny plasma.

paulWTAMU wrote:

ah, that's a combination of awesome and sad. How's OLED treating you as far as quality? And heat? Our plasma gets hotter than hell.

Sorry, I meant LED backlit LCD. It's the best HDTV I've owned so far. Heat is not an issue.

codedivine wrote:

I passed my PhD candidacy exam, so now I am a "PhD candidate"

That and $5.00 will get you a half-caf mocha soy latte at Starbucks.

Seriously, though, good on you mate.

Nice. I made the mistake of stopping at best buy (I thought i needed a cable NOW until I saw the prices)...saw a beautiful 55" Tv that made me drool.

paulWTAMU wrote:

Nice. I made the mistake of stopping at best buy (I thought i needed a cable NOW until I saw the prices)...saw a beautiful 55" Tv that made me drool.

The TV is probably cheaper than the cable.

grantmeaname wrote:

Congrats! So now you can tell people you're ABD?

Captain Ned wrote:

That and $5.00 will get you a half-caf mocha soy latte at Starbucks.
Seriously, though, good on you mate.

Thanks!

Saturday Night Live audition tapes:

John Belushi
Phil Hartman

Didn't get jack done today but it was the best Saturday in a very long time.

Damn...RIP Michael Clarke Duncan. Link

paulWTAMU wrote:

Didn't get jack done today but it was the best Saturday in a very long time.

This past weekend was one of the best I've had in a while too. Drove up to a friend's place near Oshkosh (that's in east central Wisconsin for you non-midwesterners) and had a very relaxing couple of days.

Edit: And on a completely different topic...

For the past few weeks the A/C in the area of the office where I sit has been malfunctioning; by late afternoon the temperature was rising into the mid-80s. Last Friday they finally "fixed" it. This morning it was 65 degrees in here. So we complained again. The solution suggested by building maintenance: turn on the heat too!

So anyhow... it's a nice even 72 degrees in here now. But I really don't want to think about how much energy this is wasting...

just brew it! wrote:

For the past few weeks the A/C in the area of the office where I sit has been malfunctioning; by late afternoon the temperature was rising into the mid-80s. Last Friday they finally "fixed" it. This morning it was 65 degrees in here. So we complained again. The solution suggested by building maintenance: turn on the heat too!

So anyhow... it's a nice even 72 degrees in here now. But I really don't want to think about how much energy this is wasting...

'tis the season. The chiller in our office HVAC system has been broken something like four different times this summer. Came in yesterday to try and finish some nagging busywork while the place was otherwise quiet due to the holiday, and it was 86-87F on the 8th floor. I swiped a fan from a coworker's cubicle.

This morning it was still in the 80s, but building management supposedly fixed the problem "for real" this time and added an HVAC failure alarm to their security system. We shall see.

I got some cleaning done this weekend, celebrating my moms birthday with my girlfriend and played a lot of Guild Wars2. Great weekend. I just got my new shave in, DE blade from Edwin Jagger. Handmade in England. It came recommended to me after my last blade-holder actually cracked in half! I also picked up a new shave stand for the brush/blade. Nice Chromium stand. Finally, I grabbed a nice can/case of RazoRock Don Marco as my cream/lather.

Ditching cartridge blades years ago is the best thing I've done for my face. When I broke my razor 2 weeks ago and used my gf's **** leg razors on my face, OUCH. Plus those things weigh nothing and add to the irritation as you push in while you drag. A nice heft to the blade adds considerable comfort to the shave. I think I spent $70 on all this, the last money I spend was about the same for the 3.5 years I used it. Easily worth it.

Relatively productive day here.

1. Figured out what was wrong with the youngest daughter's driver's side car door (wouldn't open from the inside), ordered parts to fix it, and jerry-rigged an interim fix (which did involve nylon cable ties, but did *not* involve duct tape).

2. (Mostly) finished prepping the walls of the 1st floor half-bath to be painted.

3. Leveled up in beer geek skills by doing my first rebuild of a CO2 pressure regulator (takes the ~800 PSI vapor pressure of liquefied CO2 down to the 5-30 PSI typically used in beer applications). Reminded me a little bit of doing a carburetor rebuild on my old Datsun 20+ years ago, without the fighting-to-get-it-off-the-engine or soaking-everything-in-kerosene steps.

I just enrolled in hunter's ed. I don't know if I'm going to start hunting but I'd like the option. Also, wild pig and deer are tasty.

Just finished lunch at Red Lobster. I need some beer to cleanse my palette. I use to be able to stomach their 'food' but it seems to me that the fare has, if possible, gotten worse. Also noticed that the wait staff are middle-aged and older. Is this the new job market paradigm finally catching up with this little burg or are the twenty & thirty-somethings migrating to Metropolis for higher wages...to go with higher rent? Is the service sector targeting the older applicants or is this an anomaly?
Why do contractors seem to treat their customers as though they are complete idiots? I don't hire them because I'm incompetent, I just don't have the time to do those projects. If I have to fix your work and/or tell you how to accomplish a task, guess who the idiot is! Oh, it is ME for hiring/paying you in the first place.
I feel a little better now. Could still use the beer(s) though.

I like Red Lobster...of course I'm a heathen but some of their food is pretty damn good and you can actually eat kind-of healthy there (if you don't blow out on the biscuts..hmmm).